A shift lever for controlling the gear-shift of the transmission of a vehicle is often installed in a center floor of the vehicle. Although this configuration is suitable for directly operating the transmission in a front-engine/rear-drive (FR) vehicle, it is not necessarily suitable for an automatic transmission in a front-engine/front-drive (FF) vehicle. In such a case, it may be more preferable to provide the shift lever in an instrument panel near a steering wheel in order to achieve both good operability of the shift lever and comfortableness of the vehicle interior, particularly in a relatively small vehicle where the interior space is limited.
In order to efficiently transmit the movements of a driver-operated shift lever to the transmission, it is usually preferable that a shift lever assembly have high rigidity and have no play in the mechanical parts thereof. However, in installation of such a shift lever assembly in an instrument panel facing a driver or passenger, it is preferable that the shift lever assembly can absorb a force applied to the shift lever when the shift lever is hit against by the driver or passenger, for example in a traffic accident, to thereby effectively prevent the shift lever from causing injury to the driver or passenger.